


My Whole World

by willshipforfood



Category: DC Animated Universe, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Birdflash - Freeform, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-07-15 02:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7202843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willshipforfood/pseuds/willshipforfood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wally West has woken up with a foggy memory in the clutches of Lex Luthor and Vandal Savage. He vaguely remembers these two being a part of a plot that nearly destroyed the Earth, but then he's told that Vandal Savage is in fact the ruler of the planet. What happened while he was asleep?</p><p>Elsewhere, Dick Grayson can't sleep without being plagued by dreams of his dearest friend dying and seeks solace in his vigilante lifestyle. Consequently, Nightwing becomes a darker and darker force in the world of crime fighting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'll update as much as I can, I do have plans to finish it. The idea is kind of raw but I want to go ahead and get this out there. This is one of my first works so comments are appreciated. I hope you enjoy.

Warmth and pain. These were the first sensations the young man recognized. The first ones, it seemed, that he had ever known. His consciousness floated in the warmth, curling away from the pain, refusing to go near it. But something tugged at him, pulling him towards it. There was something there, something beyond the pain, something more. He needed to find out what. He pushed through the warmth, towards the pain and it grew more intense, enveloping him, making the warmth seem insignificant, the pain was all he knew, until finally he found what was beyond it. A light. A searing, blinding light. Green eyes flew open.

“He woke up about five minutes ago,” Dr. Martin reported to the tall and smartly dressed figure and his costumed associate.  
“Has he said anything?” asked the man in the tailored business suit.  
“No,” the doctor reported.  
“He is likely confused,” the costumed man, with a scar marring one half of his face, noted. “After all, he should be dead.” His voice was deep and resonate. It was an unnerving voice, backed with the confidence of a life that has gone on for far too long. It made Dr. Martin uncomfortable. The business suited man just nodded.  
“You’re likely right, Vandal. Hopefully, we can clear up some of his confusion, and find out what he knows, before we have to kill him.”  
“Luthor, you’re too narrow-minded, we shouldn’t kill him. We should bring in a g-nome and wipe his mind. He’ll be much more useful that way.”  
Dr. Martin had gone pale, but she didn’t say anything against their planned actions. After all, her patient was the apprentice of one of the world’s worst supervillains. “He’s in here,” Dr. Martin said, pushing open the ward’s door.  
A young man with bright orange hair and green eyes was handcuffed to a hospital bed. He wore only a hospital gown and the electric diodes positioned over his body, measuring various electrical outputs. An IV hung by his bed, slowly administering a sedative.  
“Wally West,” Luthor said, looking down at the man. “How strange to see you all grown up.”  
Wally blinked his eyes slowly, trying to get them to focus. He’d thought he’d heard a familiar voice. He slowly turned his head towards it and his eyes eventually adjusted. Business suit, bald head, self-satisfied sneer, it was Lex Luthor alright. Wally didn’t know what Lex had to do with his current situation but he was sure it was his fault he wasn’t with the Team or the Justice League right now. His fault his memory seemed so foggy. “You,” he said, his voice hoarse. “What did you do to me?”  
“I haven’t done anything to you. Except help you. You came in in much worse condition than you are currently. You should thank me, though your type isn’t much for thanking, are they?”  
“What do you mean? Where am I?” Wally asked, his voice sounding slow to his ears. He felt as though he were drifting in molasses. It was a very unpleasant sensation for the speedster.  
“Enough pleasantries, Luthor,” Vandal said. “Let’s get on with it.”  
Wally finally noticed Vandal and his mind seized on the man, no the monster’s, presence. He remembered something, destruction, aliens, a plot to destroy the Justice League, and it had all been Vandal's fault. “You bastard,” Wally choked out. “You nearly destroyed the world. Just for your sick games.”  
Vandal raised one eyebrow. “His mind is confused,” he noted.  
“If the world was nearly destroyed, I’m sure it was by your lot,” Luthor said. “I sincerely doubt Vandal Savage would try to do something like that. Being the ruler of it, after all.”  
Wally’s mind rebelled. He was in a dream still, he must have never woken up, this wasn’t reality; it couldn’t be. He blacked out again.

“…is strange,” Luthor was saying. “Either he has made up a false reality to help resist our questioning, or he believes what he says and therefore is insane.”  
“Or, he is not the Wally West that we had killed,” Vandal Savage noted. “We are not ignorant to the presence of other timelines. He could be from one of them.”  
“If that’s the case then he’s useless to us and we should either kill him or brainwash him. The decision is yours, your majesty,” Luthor said, though the “your majesty” sounded ironic.  
They were going to try and mess with his mind, or kill him, Wally realized. He couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t wait for the League to come rescue him he had to get out. Now.  
Wally pulled his cuff tight, trying not to alert the villains standing not five feet from his bedside that he was awake again. He started vibrating his arm, still pulling against the cuff, making the chain tight, keeping the noise to a minimum. At the same time he started preparing to run, making his metabolism work faster, forcing out the sedative. It only took about 20 seconds for the locking mechanism in the cuff to break and for it to fall open. He slipped his wrist out. He may not be able to vibrate through solid objects like Uncle Barry or Bart but he still had some useful skills. Whoa, Bart? Who was that?  
A series of images ran through his mind. A red and white figure, a friend, a speedster from the future. Impulse. At least his memory was clearing up. Now it was time to get out of here.  
Taking a moment to calm himself Wally breathed evenly and then began to move as fast as he could. He zipped through the hospital, hearing shouts after him, looking for an exit but also his uniform if he could find it. Then alarms started blaring. Alright, uniform wasn’t exactly necessary, escaping was. He found an exit and ran out it, security here sucked. Once outside he realized why. He hadn’t been imprisoned in some mega high security supervillain lab, but in a regular metropolitan hospital where security was meant for regular people, not a speedster. Sweet.  
Wally ran down the streets, taking it slower than he normally would have because the pavement was wet from a recent rain and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. Plus this was his first run since… A flash of images… since… crackling energy, pain… since… Wally slowed to a stop breathing much heavier than that amount of running should have caused. He was out of shape. That was it. He was out of shape because... because he’d retired. He’d retired?! Why had he retired?!  
But he couldn’t think about that now. He had to find the Justice League. A breeze lifted his hospital gown, people passing pointed and whispered. First he had to find some clothes.


	2. Chapter 2

Dick Grayson didn’t sleep well. He never slept well. Not since… Wally. The name was like a drug to him now. He wanted it, needed it, but it was no good for him. Thinking of his friend, his best friend, did terrible things to him.  
Dick was no stranger to loss. After all, at the age of nine Batman had let him help bring his parent’s murderer to justice. But this was different. He had been a child then and Batman had offered him hope and closure. There was no closure now. It was over. All over. And Wally was just… gone. Taken from him. From this world. And he couldn’t handle that, he couldn’t accept that his best friend was allowed to just vanish, to just leave him. Dick Grayson sat on the edge of his bed in the dimly lit small apartment bedroom as the world rushed by outside his window, the nightlife just getting started. Soon it would be time for him to work. Time for Nightwing to descend upon the streets and make sure no one else was allowed to vanish from this world. At least no one who didn’t deserve it.  
He stood to get ready. He needed to shave again. He’d like to be able to just ignore it, to not bother with the monotonous routine, but he had a certain image to portray, he couldn’t look shabby.  
Dick went through the motions of becoming Nightwing routinely, almost robotically. He didn’t need to think about it, it was the same as always. After all nothing ever really changed. Not anymore. His life was gray, and dull now. No more color, no more beautiful green eyes.  
Nightwing left the 6th floor apartment building through the window. He scaled the wall to the rooftop easily, he’d done it every night for almost a year now, after all. Nightwing surveyed the city scenery, but it was unlikely he’d spot anything that needed his intervention from up here. So he set off in a mostly random direction along the rooftops. Sure he knew which areas of town were mostly likely to involve criminal activities, but tonight he didn’t have any special projects to work on. No gangs to destroy, no underworld bosses to undermine, no weapons deals to stop. Just regular crime to fight.  
Without direction, he ended up in a slum known to populated predominantly by sex workers. Typically, there wasn’t too much for him to do here, though he had upon occasion stopped thugs from beating up a worker.  
Across the street from the rooftop he sat on was a taller building with an open window almost eye level with him. He could see one of the workers bring a man to her bed. To his disgust the man wore the blue of an officer. Nightwing didn’t judge the workers who were only doing what they could to survive in this dirty and cruel world, but the men who visited them he had no sympathy, or mercy, for.  
However, there were likely worse acts being committed elsewhere in this cess pool of a city. It was better he go find those than waste his time scaring away business from- a scream rent the air. Nightwing turned. The police officer had slapped the woman back onto the bed. She tried to scream again but he put a hand around her throat and choked her off. It was possible they were just playing, but no she wouldn’t scream so loudly for a game. It was time for him to work.  
Nightwing launched a zip-line to the building across the street, anchored to the elevator maintenance shack behind him, then glided along the line, aimed perfectly for the woman’s window. He flipped in. Maintaining his acrobatic skills through puberty had been hard. He’d almost given up and developed an entirely new crime fighting style for Nightwing. Wally had encouraged him to stick with it. Wally…  
Dick stumbled for a second on his landing and not because he hadn’t executed his flip perfectly, but he righted himself.  
Then Nightwing pulled the officer off of the woman and slammed him into the wall. “Was he assaulting you?” he asked the woman. He wanted to make sure his actions were justified, after all.  
“Y-yes, he-” the woman tried to explain.  
“I don’t care why,” Nightwing said. Then, “You should probably leave.” The worker, only half dressed, ran from the room and, judging from the slamming door, the apartment itself. That was fine, she likely had friends, or at least associations, she could seek aid from.  
Nightwing turned back to the officer. His belt was undone and so was the top button of his pants but other than that he was dressed. “You,” Nightwing growled. “Are the lowest of the low.” He heaved and slammed the man onto the floor, forcing the air from his lungs. “Your job is to protect people.” Night pulled the man halfway off the floor by his throat and smashed him back down. “I shouldn’t have to do this,” he said, punching the man in the face. His lip split. “I should be out stopping criminals.” He punched him again. “Not officers who break their oaths.” His fist connected again. The officer's nose had started bleeding. “I should end your miserable existence,” Nightwing said, his voice not angry, just… dead. He pulled back his fist and the man whimpered.  
Then a cold wet feeling snaked around his fist and he was pulled off the man onto his back. Training helped him land so that he wasn’t disoriented and was able to stand up quickly as the force released his wrist. Nightwing stood face to face with Aqualad.


	3. Chapter 3

As badly as he felt about it, Wally decided he had to steal clothes. Going around naked was not an option and he didn’t have any money. It was necessary evil. He could blame it on Luthor and Vandal.  
After a quick run into a Goodwill Wally had suitable clothing for being in public. They were civvies, of course, and he always felt naked in civvies... except, no, not anymore. He'd spent the last couple of years in civvies, hadn't he? Because he'd retired. His mind was still foggy, he couldn't seem to remember why he would have retired. It seemed stupid now. But that didn't matter, after all once he figured out what was going on he could always un-retire. Would that be re-retire or just tire? He wasn't sure, Dick would probably know.  
Dick. He should find him.  
Time to figure out what city he was in. Once he did that he would know where to look for the Zeta tube and then he could go to the Cave and find the Team. Find Dick. Dick would know what was going on and he'd be able to organize the team for a counter attack against Vandal and Luthor who, hopefully, had just been trying to confuse him. They must have given him something to fog up his memory, dirty bastards.  
Wally set off down the street at a normal pace, trying not to attract attention to himself. He didn't want to make it any easier for Luthor to find him again after all. He was looking for something to tell him the city name since he didn't recognize the place from what he'd seen. A newsstand would be good, the paper would be able to tell him where he was and the date too.  
Aah! Exactly what he'd been looking for. Wally zipped by the stand and around the next corner before slowing to a walk with his contraband. His stomach growled loudly. He'd have to keep the speeding to a minimum until he got something to eat.  
Wally opened up the paper. It was the Gotham Gazette. He was in Gotham! Sweet! He could just zip over to Wayne manor and see Batman! He'd know what was going on and would know how to contact Dick!  
Wally glanced at the date printed in the upper corner of the paper. Whoa, was that really the year? His memory must be foggier than he thought. Nothing he could do about that right now though. It was time to get to Wayne manor. 

It took longer to find than he'd thought. He must be turned around because the mansion wasn't where he remembered it being. Whatever, he'd found it. Wally walked up to the front door and knocked. It was promptly opened and Wally beamed. "Alfred!" He said happily.  
"I beg pardon," said than man who had opened the door who was not Alfred. He was much younger for one thing. "Who are you, might I ask?"  
So it must be Alfred's day off and Bruce Wayne had hired a substitute butler. Alfred had days off, didn't he? "Um, I'm Wally West, I'm here to see Bruce Wayne."  
"Is Mr. Wayne expecting you?" Asked the sub butler.  
"Uh, no but I'm sure he'll want to see me. Just tell him that Wally West is here."  
"One moment," the butler sighed. He closed the door on Wally and retreated for a few minutes. It didn't take too long for the door to open again. "Mr. Wayne says he does not know any Wally West and requests you leave immediately."  
Wally was stunned. How could this be? Was Batman just trying to keep up the charade for the substitute butler maybe? Maybe this was his way of telling Wally to deal with his problems on his own? "Right," he said. Wally turned and left. Batman must just not realize how serious his visit was. After all, he couldn't know that Wally had been held prisoner by Lex Luthor and Vandal Savage... who both had a history of mind manipulation!  
Wally couldn't believe how stupid he'd been. He'd almost intentionally put himself in the presence of Batman, one of the most important and crucial members of the Justice League after being held captive by Lex Luthor without finding someone to clear his mind of anything that psycho might of put in it. It was lucky Batman had decided not to see him, whatever the reason. Now it was definitely time to get to the Cave. They could keep him locked up until M'gann had a chance to sweep his mind.  
Wally set off headed for the Zeta tube. He knew where Gotham City's was and knew it should be a quick trip even going normal pace. Well, it would have been, if the Zeta tube had been where it was supposed to be. Wally looked all over the alley but nothing. Nada, zip, zilch. What was going on? Was he still disoriented? Had the tube been relocated and the event was still lost in his foggy memory?  
His stomach gave another rumble. Fine, Wally was going to have to either search ALL of Gotham, or run to the Cave himself. Either way he needed food. He didn't want to have to steal again, but he didn't really have a choice. Wally ran into a convenience store and loaded up on a mix of fruit and junk food before settling down on a bench in small park to eat it and figure out how he planned to get to the Cave.


	4. Chapter 4

"What do you think you are doing?" Aqualad's usually calm voice was edged with a harshness that would have frightened a lesser man.  
"My job," Nightwing said calmly, an effort keeping the tiredness from his words.  
"Our job is to protect people. Not harm them. We are only to subdue those who do cause harm so that they may be judged by the proper authorities. We are heroes, not vigilantes."  
"You really think this scum bag will be judged fairly? Prostitution is illegal, there's no protection for the women who work it. He'll be back on the streets doing this again in a day if someone doesn't take matters into their own hands."  
"That is not our job. We can not take the law into our hands or we risk upsetting the balance. We risk alienating people from us and other heroes. We are only able to operate with the impunity that we currently do because we respect this boundary."  
"Well maybe the boundary needs to shift."  
Aqualad sighed. "You do not believe this. You are just... distraught. I understand."  
Nightwing had had enough. He attempted to brush past Aqualad but the Atlantian grabbed his arm.  
"Please return to the Team," he pleaded. "We can help you. You do not need to go through this alone."  
Nightwing said nothing, staring straight ahead, waiting to be released.  
"Please," Aqualad tried again. "The Team needs you right now, as much as you need it."  
Finally, Nightwing reacted. He laughed. "The Team doesn't need me. It has you to lead again." He jerked his arm from Aqualad's grasp and began to walk away.  
"I told you once," Aqualad called after him. "That I would lead, until you were ready to lift the burden from my shoulders. Well, I had thought that you were ready."  
Nightwing continued walking, getting to the window and crouching in the sill.  
"We were all affected by Wally's death," Kaldur said, quietly, knowing that Nightwing would hear him. "Please, I do not wish to lose two friends to this tragedy."  
Nightwing hesitated for just a moment longer, sitting in the sill of the window with night's cool air brushing against him. Then he slipped out and back into the night. 

Nightwing continued to prowl the streets, looking for those who deserved retribution for their actions. A part of him acknowledged the shift in the way he worked. He'd stopped looking for those to help so much as for those to punish. Kaldur's words gnawed at him. A part of him knew that the older man was right, knew that he needed the help that Kaldur offered him. But a larger part couldn't find the will to care. There was an emptiness inside that constantly threatened to swallow him whole and the only thing that could keep it at bay was action. He couldn't afford to sit around and let himself get swallowed. There was so much work to do. What did it matter how he did it so long as it got done? So that was what he did until the sun came up and scared all the creatures of darkness back into their holes. 

Dick dreamed of Wally again. He always dreamed of Wally, every time he closed his eyes, but this one wasn't the usual nightmare of gruesome death and bloody loss, no this dream was worse.  
Dick sat on the cliff outside the Cave facing the ocean. It was sunset and the water sparkled. The view was serene and the breeze smelled of salt. He'd been here 100 times in real life. It had been one of his favorite places, until it'd been destroyed at least.  
Wally sat down next to him. He didn't say anything and they sat in silence for a time. Dick eventually disturbed the peace. "I can't do this without you," he said, not looking at his best friend.  
"Sure you can, you're Dick Grayson. You can do anything."  
"Not this."  
"Clearly," Wally said, "you're not feeling the aster." Wally smiled but Dick didn't return it. He just continued to look out at the rolling waves. "Come on, Dick," Wally said. "You don't need me for this; you've never needed me."  
Dick began to cry and finally turned to look at him. "I've always needed you," he said and leaned forwards, towards Wally with his beautiful green eyes and endearing freckles. There was something he needed to do before...  
He woke up. There were tears on cheeks that he wiped away as he sat up. Dick blinked slowly, eyes bleary, head throbbing, the ever present pain in his chest, the one that made it almost too hard to breathe, was still there. It would always be there. Eyes adjusted and free of tears, he looked around. He was in his living room, he'd fallen asleep on the couch with the news on. Judging by the light coming through his shuttered window it was past noon.  
Dick stood up and stretched, glancing at the clock on the microwave in his kitchen. 12:30 the green LED blinked at him. He had 8 hours to kill before he could venture out into the streets as Nightwing. 8 hours to live as Dick Grayson before Nightwing became his shield again.  
Dick wondered into the kitchen and pulled a protein shake from that morning out of the fridge. He drank the rest of it and dropped the cup in the sink. Then he moved into his spare bedroom. It was filled with workout equipment. Certainly, it was not as impressive as the training set up he'd been used to with Batman or at the Cave, but it was suitable. It kept him in shape at least. He got the rest of his practice done on the streets each night. It kept his instincts sharp.  
Dick Grayson went to work, a routine he knew well, a rhythm he could fall into to avoid thought and memory and, for a brief time, pain.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been doing some editing but I made a pretty major edit to this chapter so if you haven't read the story in a while I would just re-read this chapter before continuing.

Wally decided that running to the Cave was his better option. He knew where the Cave was and how to get there and how long it would take. He didn't know where the Zeta tube was, where to start looking, or how long that might take. Besides, part of the point of the Zeta tubes was that they were hidden, especially from bad guys, without knowing where to look he may very well never find it.  
So Wally set off, running at a good pace that would get him to the Cave by the day's end. He didn't want to go too fast and exhaust himself, after all he didn't know how out of shape he was and running out of juice in the middle of nowhere was never a good thing.  
The almost leisurely pace, for a speedster, was relaxing and gave him time to think. According to the paper's date he had total memory loss for over a year. The rest of his memories were foggy but there somewhere. The fog extended back to almost five years previous to the total blank slate of his memory. Maybe they'd started wiping his mind but had been able to get it all? So either he had memories for the past year but Luthor and Vandal had done something to his memories, or he didn't have those memories meaning he'd been out of commission for all that time, mostly due to something traumatic considered his very foggy memory.  
Wally wasn't sure which he thought was worse. One meant someone had definitely been messing with his head and the other meant something very serious had happened to him. And also that he hadn't been around to help when the whole world went sideways and Vandal, allegedly, took over.  
Vandal Savage. Ruler of the Earth. It seemed so far fetched that Wally thought it must be a lie. If it wasn't what would that mean for the Justice League and the Team? Surely Vandal wouldn't have been able to take over if they were still out there fighting the good fight? But that would mean if they had been telling the truth...  
No, it couldn't be, it just couldn't. Wally needed to focus on his run. No reason to let himself be distracted by pointless speculation. Things would be cleared up when he got to the Cave. He had to believe that. He had to... 

When Wally arrived at the Cave the sun was nearly set. He was glad he'd made it before dark. Without his suit and goggles he didn't have any night vision capabilities. He went to the front entrance and nothing happened. It was supposed to recognize him and open. Well maybe if he'd retired they'd removed his ID from the system? A bit cold but there were legitimate security concerns with more people having access to secure areas. He'd just have to use the manual override.  
Wally walked up to the mountain side and pushed the hidden panel open to enter a pass-code to open the door. If they'd changed that too then at least opening the panel would alert the Cave someone was trying to get in. Then they'd recognize him and open the door anyways. Easy.  
Except the panel didn't open. Wally pushed and pulled and pounded but nothing happened. He was, eventually, forced to the conclusion that there wasn't a panel there. It was just rock. He looked around for another area that might hold the panel. Maybe they'd done some rewiring? Still, by now someone should have noticed him on the security cameras. He looked up to where they were hidden, but couldn't see them.  
That's fine, Wally told himself. It's just because it's getting dark, it's hard to see in this light.  
But part of him was beginning to panic. He ran around the mountain several times and even up to the ledge where he and Robin always used to sit together. The back door was almost always left open since it was so hard to get to and only led into the secure hangar anyways, there was another level of security before getting into the Cave proper and M'gann's ship would let her know of any intruders.  
The back door was closed. So tightly that it looked as though it had never been opened. As thought there had never been a door here at all. It looked wrong, not at all like it did when closed.  
They redid the door, for more security. Probably because of Vandal... Wally tried to convince himself. Or they left and have a new HQ because all the bad guys found out where we were operating from.  
But these arguments didn't fit. When the Justice League abandoned the Cave they hadn't filled it in, made it so it looked like there was nothing there. It didn't make sense to spruce up security and then leave. It didn't make sense to go to such drastic lengths to secure the Cave at all. Besides, if there was someone in there, they would have noticed him by now.  
Wally was forced to admit that the Cave did not exist and never had.

He sat down at the base of the mountain. Now things were bad. Very bad. The Cave was really his best bet for finding the team and M'Gann. He could always check the Hall of Justice, but of course the Justice League spent most of its time up in their hovering space lair, to which he had not been provided access. Maybe? Thinking about the lair pulled up some weird memories of the place. Had he been there during his five foggy years?  
Thinking about it, Wally knew how old he was, 22 now almost 23, but his most vivid memories came from when he was 17. It was a disorienting experience.  
Ok, he needed to solve this, he'd just have to focus. Other than the Cave where could he find his team? The Cave was their main location, true. It was where they trained, hung out together, often times where they slept. It had been like his second home for years.  
Wally suddenly felt an overwhelming sadness. The Cave... it had been destroyed. Leveled. Gone for good. Dick had let that happen. For the greater good yes, but Wally still hated that it'd happened.  
But if that was the case, then what was this mountain doing here?  
Little pieces began to fall into place. Wally was a scientist. He knew the theory's of other dimensions, had even met people from them. He was also familiar with the idea of parallel worlds. Worlds that ran on different timelines. Now there was no doubt in his mind; Wally had gotten himself stuck in an Alternate Universe.


	6. Chapter 6

Dick Grayson was tired, but then, when wasn't he? Even on the streets, even while fighting to protect the innocents of Gotham, he was tired. Between his irregular sleep schedule and regular insomnia it was to be expected. But that day it dragged on him, felt like it was weighing him down. The exhaustion was like an anchor trying to drown him. He couldn't let it. 

Dick pulled on his mask and Nightwing slipped out into the streets. He just needed to find a good fight, to help someone who was in trouble and he'd feel better. It didn't take him long to find someone who needed help. There was always someone who needed help in the streets of Gotham. This time it was a middle aged woman who had been cornered by three men. They held switchblades and she was moments from relinquishing her valuables to them. 

Nightwing dropped down behind the men. He didn't speak to them, didn't give them a chance to stop, to come peacefully and turn themselves in, or even to run. No, Nightwing no longer cared about any of that, about second chances. The world was too cruel to go around giving such things away. 

The man on the left was spun around and a sharp knee was brought into his face, breaking his nose. He dropped as the blood flowed. Nightwing kicked the kneecap of the man in the middle out of place and he fell to the cement howling in pain, disturbing the relative peace of the quiet back alley. The third man received a kick to the stomach that knocked him back into the narrow alley's walls and drove the breath from his lungs. 

"Thank you," the woman gasped, her breathing ragged, clutching her purse to her chest. Nightwing simply looked at her for a moment, before one of the muggers, the one with the bleeding nose, drew his attention by struggling to his knees. Nightwing sent a kick to his chin and he was thrown onto his back, his teeth clacking down with a sickening sound. Blood oozed from his mouth indicating that he'd bitten his tongue. 

The woman's eyes were wide, she was clearly now almost as scared of Nightwing as she had been of the men who'd assaulted her. She moved carefully past him and hurried away, looking back fearfully as though he might follow. 

He didn't. Instead he looked at the men laid out on the ground. They weren't going to put up anymore fight. Nightwing sighed, disappointed, and left the alley looking for more action; for something else to help lift the anchor. 

 

"Unfortunately, I do not think talking will be an effective method to reign in our friend," Kaldur'ahm said in his calm voice as he watched Nightwing's actions through a hacked security camera. 

"Then maybe it's time to bring him in by force," Superboy said, punching one fist into the palm of his other hand. 

"I don't think that would go over very well," Artemis noted. "Even if we were able to detain him, and that's a big IF, what would it accomplish? He definitely wouldn't listen to us from behind the bars of the team's holding cell!" 

"Miss Martian, would you be comfortable reading his mind, seeing if there was someway to calm the pain within?" Kaldur asked the alien. 

The young woman held up her hands, "I don't think I'm comfortable doing that. Dick is our friend, I don't want to betray him like that. Even for his own good." 

Superboy made a small noise but Kaldur was not sure if it was assent or protest. He did notice that Miss Martian intentionally avoided the Kryptonian's gaze, however. 

"Then I do not know what else there is for us to do," Kaldur said sadly. "He has refused every advance we have made. He has even shut out Tim and the Batman. I do not want to admit defeat but perhaps we have lost the Dick Grayson we once knew." 

"So what? You're just going to give up on Nightwing like you gave up on the real Roy?" Red Arrow demanded angrily. Red Arrow was always angry. "You all, Dick included, kept trying to save me no matter how lost I got. He's not even as bad as I once was! At least he's not stealing from the people he saves!" 

Kaldur turned to look at Red Arrow along with the rest of the team. "This is true but Dick has also shown more of a disregard for human life than you ever did. I am afraid his actions will soon begin to leave death in their wake." 

"That's no reason to abandon him! And even if we do what will it accomplish? He'll just keep doing what he's doing. If he won't listen then Superboy's right, our only chance to keep him from doing something unforgivable is to detain him." 

"That sounds like a great idea!" Artemis said sarcastically. "We'll just keep Batman 2.0 on lock-down in the base that he designed the security for!" 

"You know who might be able to help?" Miss Martian said. 

 

"I'm glad that you've turned to me," Black Canary said over video link. "I have been made aware of the situation by Batman but I didn't want to step in uninvited. I would, of course, be happy to talk to Dick. He was always very forthcoming in our sessions when you all were younger so it's possible there may be something I can do." 

"We can not thank you enough," Kaldur said sincerely. "We know that he is our responsibility even more than he is Batman's, but he has rebuffed every attempt to communicate we have made whether as teammates, or as friends." 

"He is having a very hard time adjusting to Wally's... fate. Wally was his best friend, it's understandable. Though I must admit I never expected him to become so... violent. The tapes you showed me were very disturbing. I will of course set out right away. Again, I appreciate you all bringing this to me. I would be honored to continue to be a part of your lives. You may each come to me for anything, you know that right?" 

"Yes, Black Canary," Aqualad said solemnly. The rest of the team all made their indications of assent. 

"I'll let you know how it goes as soon as possible. Black Canary out." The video feed terminated. 

"It is in Black Canary's hands for now," Aqualad said to everyone. 

"And if she fails?" Superboy asked ominously. 

Aqualad sighed, looking tired, worn out, "I do not know. But I think that is a bridge we will all have to cross should we come to it. For now, get some sleep. We must attend to our duties as team leaders in the morning. Perhaps we will have good news from Black Canary soon." Looking into each of their worried faces Aqualad could tell that none of them believed that would happen any more than he.


End file.
